


It's Like Trying To Catch A Falling Star

by Measured



Category: Team Fortress 2
Genre: Canon-Typical Violence, Community: cottoncandy_bingo, F/M, Fluff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-03-11
Updated: 2015-03-11
Packaged: 2018-03-17 08:55:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,398
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3523193
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Measured/pseuds/Measured
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Post Expiration Date. Even if they're technically dating, Scout still gets flustered around her sometimes.</p>
            </blockquote>





	It's Like Trying To Catch A Falling Star

**Author's Note:**

  * For [RAXip](https://archiveofourown.org/users/RAXip/gifts).



> Multiversecafe just went through a nasty paper from hell, then a ton of days of work, so she needs all the fluff she can get. She also betaed it. Pick up lines come from [here](http://www.pickuplinesgalore.com/cheesy.html), the title comes from ["How Do You Talk To An Angel" by The Heights,](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=miYCEIvMxZc) a song which somehow has not made it to any of my mixes yet. I'll have to fix that with the next one.

"Like deja vu all over again," Scout said under his breath. He wished he could say he had some kind of thing, like spending too much time staring at the sun. But being shit at talking to girls wasn't one of those things he could just reference, like an old running wound or limp.

He just had to power through it. But it was a whole lot easier to plan out his day when he wasn't nearby and just hitting a wall like a cartoon at the mere scent of her perfume, or a glimpse of her torn stockings and blood-stained nails.

He leaned against the sun-baked bricks. Sure it was rough and hot against his back, but he figured it gave him a tough-guy look, so the discomfort was worth it.

She smiled slightly, turning her face out of the glare of the sun as she caught sight of him. He was pretty sure the dark stains all over her purple blouse weren't from wine. Lunch wasn't even over, and she probably killed more guys than he did, if a comparison of his red shirt and her blouse was any indication. He had hand it to her: she was a professional. He couldn't even be jealous of a skill that good. It was like a work of art, the way she shot down and cut up those chucklenuts.

His mind was a mess of _do I make a cute face now, should I strike a pose, fuck what was that line again?_ that he did little more than wave and fall into step beside her. Even _hi_ seemed way too cliché. It had to be something worthy of a movie, the kind of thing she'd remember later on. Something frigging _drastic_ and incredible that'd wow her.

He was just thinking that maybe it wasn't the word, but how he phrased it, and he'd get a sexy _hey there_ that would obliterate all the other greetings she'd gotten in her life.

Well, he was thinking that that and a little bit of _shit, there's sand in my shoes again. Fuck New Mexico with cacti_ when she spoke up. 

"You're awful quiet today---something I normally wouldn't say about you, at all," she said, and laughed.

He shrugged---wait, was that tough and suave enough? Caught in the heat of the sun and the sense of her near, he lost every cool thing he'd meant to say.

"Um, yeah, well, you see---"

She waited for him, pausing in her step. Maybe he could blame heatstroke, or her eyes.

"Yes?" Miss Pauling said.

"Yeah, about that, um---"

"Scout, say something," she said.

"Look, okay---Sometimes I just look at you and---total brain fart, but like, romantic and soft. Thoughts, not farts, I mean. I mean, the sun is in your _hair_ and it's shiny and your eyes are really pretty and um. Ummm---I just, really, really like you. And sometimes what I gotta say don't seem enough, so I try and jazz it up a bit but you tell me I sound like a douche and it don't come out right."

She smiled. As far as he'd gone, dating was pretty amazing. Even if dating technically lasted like ten minutes between kills, and he now knew ten ways to belt-sand fingerprints off a copse, it was still pretty amazing.

"You know, you're pretty cute when you're flustered. But, the only reason you should be telling me lines if if you're trying to make me laugh," Miss Pauling said.

"Hey, I can do that," Scout said with a grin.

He was the class clown in school, that was when he wasn't smashing in faces. He knew how to piss off teachers with a chorus of laughing students. His brothers were always going _Liam, you're fuckin' hilarious_ even though it usually was when he was just trying to tell them how awesome he'd been that day and how all the girls wanted a piece of him.

"Okay, I got a good one. Are you a magician? Because whenever I look at you, everyone else disappears! And I don't mean the body, I mean like, girls and stuff, though you're good at that too!"

"That one is pretty good," she said.

"Oh, here's one: Are you a parking ticket? 'Cause you've got fine written all over you," Scout said.

This one only got a chuckle. He'd had to try harder. He'd really liked that one, too.

"I thought happiness started with an H. Why does mine start with U? Or in my case, P?"

"I'd presume it's because you aren't a spelling bee champion," she said.

"You got that right, fuck that egghead crap," Scout said.

"I was a spelling bee champ three years running in elementary school," she said.

"Actually, they ain't that bad if I ain't the one in them," Scout said. "I'd have watched you mind your P's and Q's all day long."

"I can conjugate verbs _all_ day if you want," she said.

Just when he'd started to get used to her smile, the way she'd look up at him, _bam_ flirtation. But he'd worked too hard to just be this tongue-tied.

"–-Pretty sure I fell asleep in that class, but I am so on. Speakin' of on, so am I, on my game, that is." Scout said.

"Did you read Dr. Seuss as a kid? Because green eggs and... damn! Are you a banana, because you sure are a-peeling--"

"Those are awful," she said. But she still laughed.

Her skin was slightly flushed, like a sunburn was coming on. If his next date involved getting aloe vera gel and a whole lot of complaining and peeling skin, he'd be down. Hell, he'd go along even if her job of the day was cleaning out stalls or trying to clean out the terrifying bathrooms on the base. Hand him that toilet cleaner and a mask and make sure she was in sight and he'd take it over a day out in the town with any other girl.

"Oh, wait, wait, I got it---You're so beautiful that you made me forget my pickup line."

"Now there's a good line, though it's still a line," she said.

"Actually, that one's for real," Scout said. Scout rubbed at the back of his neck. "I wrote it down on my skin, but the sun went and made it all melty. Then I choked again. You're like a shovel to the face, Miss Pauling. And with as long as I have known Soldier, I _know_ shovels to the face."

"Now there's a good one," she said.

"So, basically you're sayin' I gotta be original and possibly violent?" Scout asked.

Miss Pauling pulled out her notepad. "Violence is usually a plus in the area, just don't overdo it out of the ring like Soldier and Pyro and Medic and Demoman when he's drunk and Spy when he's feeling bored, Sniper when Spy pisses him off--"

"I got it, we're all assholes," Scout said.

"You all do make my job a lot harder," she said.

Scout could only shrug sheepishly to that. He _did_ steal a briefcase, after all. In the history of boneheaded plans, that was the top. On the other hand, he'd gotten to spend time with her, to freaking _date_ her. Though after seeing the kinds of stuff she did on the job, he sure was glad the whole to kill list he thought he'd been on was a joke.

"Though, lately you've been making my job a lot more fun," she said.

"So it's about even, right?" Scout said.

"More or less," she said. She flipped the notepad shut.

"I've got a meeting at two, but you're welcome to hang around for the rest of lunch. It's running a little late, had some important bodies to get to," she said.

"Yeah, _important_ bodies, like those not-important ones, but smellier," Scout said.

"You're such a dork," she said, laughing. But it was fond, like a damn compliment with the way she said it.

Scout was starting to think that suave wasn't where it was at. Maybe his class clown self, with brilliant quips and the occasional dirty joke to keep her laughing. Then maybe she'd remember the times with him and chuckle to herself, like a joke so good that it came up through the day in fits of giggles.


End file.
